Retired Baltimore Cop Tweets About Abuses He Witnessed

This morning (June 24th), Michael A. Wood Jr., a retired Baltimore police detective, began sending out a series of tweets about abuse he had “seen & participated in, in policing that is corrupt, intentional or not.”

Below are those tweets:

So here we go. I’m going to start Tweeting the things I’ve seen & participated in, in policing that is corrupt, intentional or not.

Targeting 16-24 year old black males essentially because we arrest them more, perpetrating the circle of arresting them more. — Michael A. Wood Jr. (@MichaelAWoodJr) June 24, 2015

According to Salon.com, this isn’t the first time Wood has made some sort of admission about abuse by police:

Wood previously alluded to much of the misconduct he claims to have witnessed during a May 2015 interview on the podcast Dogma Debate with David Smalley. During that interview, Wood called for an end to the war on drugs and cited a lack of empathy as one of the main drivers of police misconduct.

Wood’s admissions and the timing of them are a bit telling about the culture of police departments. It’s somewhat of a better late than never scenario, but the fact that he stood by and witnessed all of these (and probably many more) abuses and didn’t report them or take steps to stop them shows the level of complicity among law enforcement. This is something else I’m actually not personally surprised by. I’ve had a number of Las Vegas police answer with some variation of “are you going to pay my bills if I do,” when questioned about not reporting bad cops. The implication that they would get fired for speaking up after witnessing abuse or corruption shows who really controls police departments. The bad apples have already spoiled the bunch.

However, the idea that you should stand by and witness or cover up and even participate in abuses for monetary reasons doesn’t speak much for your own morality or how much of a good cop you actually are. Woods and others who “come clean” after their days as a cop are over should be commended for that act and the light that it shines on the corruption and police brutality out there. It would be much more beneficial if those standing there right this moment witnessing an abuse would take a stand here and now, though. If we’re really to believe that the bad ones are just a tiny minority of the police force, then the good shouldn’t have to worry about retaliation, since there’s so many more of them.

BTW, it didn’t take long for the parade of “Good Cop” supporters to show up and let Wood know how much they approved of his honesty and willingness to expose bad cops:

@MichaelAWoodJr Dude! What’s wrong with you? Are you still a cop? “Not for long” I bet if you are. And what’s your point? Guilt?

Kelly is a lifelong resident of Las Vegas, who’s been very active in local grassroots activism, as well as on a national level during his extensive travels. He’s also the founder/main contributor of Nevada Cop Block, served as editor/contributor at CopBlock.org and designed the Official Cop Block Press Passes. ____________________________________________________________________________ Connect with Kelly at these social networks; Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

17 Comments

He retired in 2014 from BPD. Woods can talk, but never face any consequences, criminal or civil.

From another news article: “….Wood said he would testify if any of the civilians in the cases he mentioned stepped forward and asked for justice, but the incidents involving the slapping of the woman and the suspect who got kicked in the face were from 2004 or 2005….” Statute of limitations, both civil and criminal has expired.

“I really would help, no really, but darn….sorry….” Guess he didn’t learn any courage from the USMC. All those cops tricked me, I was beguiled by their charisma. Odd, something tells me he will be selling another book.

Maybe he is just an attention whore. Maybe he is telling what so many want to say as to what really goes on. I mean, we can have a cop with 15 complaints, 10 sustained and also be responsible for a million in judgments and that is called par for the course as lawsuits are part of the job. But we have a cop who seems to have a stellar background. Was in leadership and appeared to be a distinguished cop and somehow he isn’t credible? HUH!?? I know what he says are anecdotes but the BPD is a circus. Wait, a train wreck. This is the 2nd BPD officer, that seems to be a top notch cop, that has talked about the real inner workings of the BPD. So damn bad, were they, that the hometown newspaper clowned them hard. A 40 % sustained rate on complaints over 2 years involving 850 officers. Yup, that is “doing it right” as we are told on here time and time again I suppose! Hell, what he tweeted is a checklist of stories we see almost daily now!

I’m always curious why people don’t get even outside of the court. everybody that has crossed me in a bad way, is no longer here. bodies are impossible to find in the woods. as long as they are cut and bleeding and naked, animals will find them and completely dispose of them in under 3 days. the cuts cannot be made postmortem though.

Fired because what he is saying is true….. Doesn’t help your argument any.. actually….you have absolutely no argument. This place proves day after day in a plethora of ways how fucked up and corrupt the police are. Your ineptitude of acknowledging the obvious facts are a simple insight into the twisted brain of yours.